


Fresh Perspective

by Maraienna (Mara360)



Series: Radiant Solutions Saga [1]
Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Depression, Emotionally Repressed, Family Issues, Gen, Jealousy, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sharing a Body, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28856862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara360/pseuds/Maraienna
Summary: One night, before the start of 1010's on-season, a criminal breaks into Baracca Mansion and tampers with the very sensitive technology that comprises 1010. On top of that, Zimelu and Purl-Hew have been butting heads the entire off-season causing tensions to rise even long before the criminal's unfortunate arrival. So what will 1010 do when three of their members merge into one, just a few days before their first concert of the year?
Series: Radiant Solutions Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116131
Comments: 15
Kudos: 20





	1. Break-In

Late into the night, a figure in a hoodie approaches the streets across from Baracca Mansion. The only major distinction of this person was the general shape and height of their body indicating a tall male. Considering that this city was full of tall men, that was not a major enough distinction for any passersby to comment on - if there were any people around at the current moment that is. It was near the end of 1010’s current break, meaning that tourism was light during the day and nonexistent in the late-night hours of 2 AM.

The mysterious figure, whose face was masked by sunglasses and a bandanna, looked up at the cameras positioned around the fencing of Barracca Mansion, peeking just behind the wall of a nearby building. He knew just how high-tech this place was, a single pixel of a mistake could spell disaster for what he was planning to do. He moved back into full cover, taking out a tablet he’d stolen from the Planetarium, and used its shut off-screen to make absolutely certain not a single detail of his face or hair was in view.

He then took a glance at the taped-off camera on the tablet. He had to absolutely be careful. While he knew everything about 1010’s security and technology, he didn’t know everyone’s technological capabilities. If the tablet had a security system that would make it so that it occasionally took photos at random or was secretly sending feedback to a database, he couldn’t take that risk. He had gone yesterday morning to the Planetarium at it’s busiest hours, in a disguise that was similar, yet different to this one, and had to apply the tape from behind the camera. Then, he stole it and kept it hidden within the confines of his backpack.

One more look over his disguise and he felt confident. The thief used the tablet, to connect to the security system network in Baracca Mansion. He saw the entire map layout as to who was where and what security measures were where. He frowned, seeing Neon J was in the lab that he wanted to access. A minor hiccup, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He knew that tourism would pick up within the next week and 1010 would resume playing somewhat sooner than that - he had to do this now if he had any chance of crippling a district.

The hooded figure disabled the cameras and gave the database a false video feed to indicate nothing had changed. Then he quickly sprinted over to a spot where he’d noticed a malfunction in the gate’s security system the other day. Normally, the spikes around the gate would send a silent security alert if anything landed on them, with NSR drones quickly coming in to see what the problem was. Yet at this particular part of the fencing, he’d noticed some birds had decided to perch there, making a nest between the bars and spikes. No drones had come as of yet within the past day or so of him noticing. The vagrant would use this as a way in.

He scaled the fencing as best as he could, glancing inside the nest to make sure that it wasn’t a prank or a decoration. The bird that he saw earlier stared at him, feathers fluffed in a tired and delayed fight or flight response. He smirked under the bandana mask - sloppy work Neon J, he tutted in his head. After scaling the fence successfully and looking up to see if he had accidentally left a trace of clothing, he moved to the back door of the mansion. This was the fastest available route to the workshop Neon J was still in, as well as his escape route. It was also the location of the factory, where if a 1010 unit was damaged beyond all repair, another would pop out in its place.

The trespasser saw the electronic lock of the system and used a master code he’d gotten off of an NSR enforcer unit. With ease he’d been granted access, a green light indicating that fact. Slipping inside quietly, he looked at the map again to make sure he knew where he was going and slithered into the quiet halls of the grand home. Much like a snake, the criminal moved with grace and silence. He knew that his footprints would likely be traced back to the exact path with which he moved, so he moved through halls which he knew would soon be covered up by fans traipsing through the halls on a tour, which would be opening later this morning. He wanted them to know something was wrong, sure, but he didn’t want to make it easy for them.

Through his pathways, he was able to get close to the rooms of the 1010 units. At this point, they would all still be charging, getting ready for the next day. The criminal quietly slipped into the room closest to his - Haym’s - and looked over the sleeping band member.

Haym was standing upright, hands crossed over his chest. The lights off in the hair and having it fall to the side indicated he was well and truly shut off for the current moment, or at the very least in a very, very deep sleep mode. The snake slid through and moved closer to Haym. He knew that the 1010 robots had previously been military drones, but wasn’t fully sure of what they were capable of now. As such, he moved through the room as quietly and slowly as he could afford, tablet at the ready, pulling a cord from his pocket and plugging it in. For a moment, the vagrant hesitated. Not from a sense of moral righteousness, but a momentary concern as to the possibility of Haym activating through touch.

The criminal looked at the time. 2:30 AM. He frowned, brows furrowing. He had no time to hesitate now. He looked at the panel of Haym’s back. He would have to work quickly if he wanted to do this without setting off every alarm available. The criminal pushed the panel open, and quickly jammed the open end of the cord into Haym, activating an override command he’d stolen a while back when Bunkbed Junction had gone through their revolution. The lights sputtered on from Haym for a moment, and there was a confused “what?” before he slumped over completely turned off.

The criminal heaved a quiet sigh of relief. It still worked. This next part was also up in the air, but as long as it worked on at least two members of 1010, it would all be worth it in the end. He changed a few things in the code, copying it to the tablet for greater ease of access, and then quickly resetting everything physical back to the way it was. Three of the others went much more smoothly after the initial hesitation was done, with copy and pasting.

Then came Zimelu. When the criminal entered, he immediately noticed the dimly lit roots of the hair. Zimelu was only in sleep mode. He had to think ahead in case Zimelu woke up. Quietly tucking the tablet into the hoodie and slinking the cord into his sleeve. He set the program to go off every few seconds until it succeeded in its task, and then quietly approached Zimelu. If the robot had noticed the hacker, Zimelu made no indication of it. At least, not until the criminal had opened the panel.

Zimelu whirled and grabbed the criminal by the wrist, the anonymous figure hissing in pain as he attempted to forcibly pin the man to the ground in a vice grip. The figure was agile though and with a sleight-of-hand, he slipped the other end into the slot in Zimelu’s back panel. When Zimelu successfully pinned the figure in a vice grip, he quickly pulled back the hoodie to reveal the vagrant. At first, Zimelu’s eyes widened in surprise, then in seething hot fury.

“You! What are you planning?!” Zimelu hissed.

“Just a little experiment for a new employer of mine.” the criminal chuckled quietly, glancing at the wire, “It’ll simply de-light you.” He added the pun with a much more sinister tone.

Zimelu looked to where he was looking and opened his mouth to sound an alert. The program kicked in at that moment, and Zimelu slumped on top of the criminal completely limp and off. The snake quickly worked, and then put Zimelu back as he was. He could at this point erase the memory if he so chose. But no, he wanted to give them at least a fighting chance. Instead, he locked the memory away for the future.

The man quickly put his disguise back together and headed down back to the lab. Neon J was still there, according to the map. 3 AM. He had to quickly work and escape before sunrise.

As he entered through the door, he saw the cyborg slumped over a work station. This would be the most dangerous of all - the others were only activated by touch, but if Neon J was awake there would be no way for him to sneak past someone who had sonar in an indoor setting. He took a tentative moment to step inside. Then another step. And another. Yet Neon J did not move. As the man listened, he could hear light snoring coming from Neon J. It seemed that Neon J’s workaholism got the better of him at the worst possible time for the cyborg. Perfect timing, however, for this awful human to come in and ruin everything.

The figure strode over to the factory with confidence, setting to work immediately rearranging everything that was required for this evil plot to work. A few crossed wires here, a little reprogramming there… and by the time 4:30 AM rolled around the trap had been set. The criminal smiled from ear to ear. All he had to do was head to the exit and leave little teasing bread crumbs. The evil man chuckled quietly as he left the lab, heading back through the path he came through, and scaling the fence with a giddy sense of accomplishment flowing through his veins.

He purposefully turned the cameras back on, as for one, the sun was truly beginning to rise enough for daylight to now shine and false video feed could only go so far, and to leave the breadcrumb of his escape through the video feed. He made sure to position the tablet under his arm so that the logo could partially be picked up on camera, and ran from the fencing. He felt the camera’s movement follow him, and he laughed as he headed in the opposite direction of his current base of operations.

Soon, he thought to himself, the world would see just how useless other genres are.


	2. Tensions Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin finds Neon J still asleep at his work station and takes it upon himself to get the rest of the 1010 members together for practice and daily maintenance. However, something goes horribly awry...

In the morning, Eloni awoke to the sound of silence. Glancing around, he’d seen nothing in the room had changed. Strange… he thought he’d been activated in the middle of the night. It must have been a strange part in his dreams. It had to have been. He’d been exploring the concept of dreaming while in sleep mode, as Haym had been suggesting and it has been an interesting experiment, to say the least. Haym was the first one to actually try dreaming, out of the five of them, and he still had yet to convince anyone aside from Eloni. Eloni’s dreams had been… troubling to say the least. It was mostly the same few dreams, but there was one that stuck out the most from all of them.

In it, the rest of his family was there, and they were all talking with each other, their backs facing him. They were talking about their fan letters. Eloni stands there, awkwardly, waiting for one of them to notice him - but they never do, and a gnawing, painful feeling takes over each time. He screams until his voice box breaks for one of them to respond or to even notice him. They don’t even flinch in the dream, and pressure builds in his chest, throat, and around his eyes. His fans kick into high gear as the pressure builds, getting warmer and warmer.

In the dream, the scene changes to the four of them on stage - and the fans adore them. Whenever Eloni rushed to join them onto the stage, everything fades. There’s no one there. No fans, no stage crew - not even his family. He didn’t know when it started, but in the dream, he’d stopped trying to join them on the stage, instead opting to turn his back to look away, sitting and put his hands on the sides of his head, trying to drown out the noise.

Thinking on it now, practicing and actually running through performances weren’t fun anymore. He’d also stopped going with the others when the fan mail came in. He already knew there wasn’t anything for him. The pressure was also starting to form outside of dreams. He wasn’t sure what this pain was - deeply rooted in his chest, never going away. Eloni had gone to Neon J about it but there was nothing physically wrong with him. When the cyborg asked Eloni if he was okay, Eloni lied and said it was probably just a minor malfunction. At the time, they were so busy with NSR and powering the city that Eloni knew it was an improper time to talk about it.

Now, even though things have been much easier on the family, there was still never time to talk about it. Routines need to be practiced, fan meetings, concerts, NSR meetings, organizing the influx of new artists assigned to the Metro Division… Eloni wasn’t doing all of this on his own, of course, but with the responsibility split between all of them, there wasn’t ever any good time to talk. Eloni had taken those feelings that he couldn’t identify and shoved them into a tiny corner of his motherboard and put them back there if they tried to interfere with anything.

Eloni suspected that it was doing more harm than good, as it was getting harder and harder to keep ahold of these emotions and thoughts - so he’d stopped joining the others in activities. He wasn’t sure when it’d started, but he knew he’d lost interest in things that were fun. He even shut off the internal communication program that he had with the others. Neon J installed it as a method of communicating with the other members of his family as a means of being more like a well-organized unit. Though the others used it to send quick messages when they were trying to spy on Neon J.

Eloni looked over to the bed in the room. It wasn’t really needed, as the charging station was actually used to power them. But Eloni had been using it more and more recently, a small nest of pillows tossed into a semi-circle on the bed, the sheets messed up and laying half-way on the bed itself. Eloni climbed into it, slipping into a low-power mode. The pressure in his chest was still there, and yet there was something new there as well. It was a yawning maw of a void that Eloni couldn’t escape from even if he tried.

So he decided to not try. He quietly lay there, not even bothering to pull his phone out, watching the seconds tick by in the internal clock he had. He briefly had thoughts of getting up and at least trying to do something else to pass the time, just anything. But the internal void swallowed it up.

 _Why bother?_ It asked of him. _There is nothing you can do that won’t be a waste of everyone’s time._

And worse still, he agreed with it. So he continued to lay there, allowing the void to gnaw deeply at his insides. Going to sleep to pass the time wouldn’t help, he’d just fall into one of those strange dreams again. Eloni felt so useless, but he also felt helpless to do anything about it.

After a little while of this - Eloni eventually stopped counting the time he spent laying there - there came a soft knock at the door, followed by it opening slowly.

“Eloni?” came the gentle voice of Haym, “May we come in?”

Eloni said nothing, but Haym stepped in anyways - from the sound of it, all four of them were there as they entered the room. Someone sat on the edge of the bed - from the glow in the darkness he picked up from the corner of his eye, it was Haym.

“Sure is dusty in here…” he heard Zimelu mutter, followed by a light smack from presumably Purl-Hew, and then a low growl from Zimelu. The two of them had been fighting a lot recently...

“Eloni, we’re going to go practice our routine in the yard.” Haym spoke, “You know that the concert is just half a week away…”

“We need you for the routine.” Purl-Hew added, as neutral as ever, “You haven’t left your room in days.”

Had it been that long? There was a moment of silence as Eloni thought - then realized the feeling of guilt and shame that should be there just… wasn’t. It was instead replaced by that all-consuming void, doubt creeping into his head about them actually needing him. None of this was vocalized aloud, however.

Zimelu sighed, irritated. “Come on guys, we should get started. If he doesn’t want to leave, Dad J can just order him to get out of bed.”

“He’s still asleep.” Rin spoke up, “And he’ll be that way for a while. He was in the lab.”

“Again?” Purl-Hew’s turn to sound annoyed, though it was from a place of concern.

One by one they left the room, except Haym who gave a gentle pat on the shoulder to Eloni.

“When you’re ready, we’ll be outside.” He said softly, before standing from the bed.

Eloni wanted to tell them to not leave him, but the gnawing pit in his core kept him quiet. They were going to do this one way or another, and it was best to rip the proverbial bandaid off now than continue to pretend there was still an ounce of interest left in him. When he heard the door close, Eloni gripped a nearby pillow tighter, shaking as the pressure built to a form of pain he wasn’t quite used to yet. He bit onto it to hold back the sobs that were coming out of him.

If he got up now, he could still join them. He could still try, there was still a chance-

 _There is no point. Repeating the same torture over and over to expect a different result is nothing short of insanity._ The void hissed at him. _Not to give you any credit to the contrary. You’re insane for even thinking about it in the first place._

Eloni heaved a sigh through the sobs and forced himself to power back up. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed despite having every reason to not bother. He had to pretend, if not for his sake, then for the others. He got up and moved to the door, swinging it open. They were likely already outside. Eloni moved through the quiet halls, hearing the sound of his own metallic feet hitting the flooring.

Though the yawning maw of nothingness continued to whisper those horrible things to him, Eloni pushed through on sheer stubbornness alone. Before heading outside, he decided to check on Neon J. Heading down to the lab, he poked his head in quietly. He didn’t find Neon J there - Rin must have put him in bed or he could have woken up and gone to eat. In either case, Eloni didn’t have an excuse now.

In a few short minutes, Eloni headed out the side door to where he knew the regular practice would be going. Sure enough, he heard Rin counting the measures in the song as it played. He lingered in the doorway for a moment. He could turn around now, head back to bed, just wait the day out. The others looked like they were performing well - the dance looked great, even without him in it.

Eloni stepped out of the entryway and moved closer to the field. He would at least try. If he did badly enough, they would just perform without him, right? Yeah. So they didn’t have anything to lose other than a few seconds of time. Before he had another moment to hesitate, he closed the distance between himself and them.

“Haym, good job, just watch that leg swing. You too Zimelu, watch those arms.” Rin was saying, “Purl-Hew relax, you’re looking like you’re stiffening up when you enter the spin.” Then, he turned and looked at Eloni, smiling.

“Hey.” Eloni said quietly.

“Hey Eloni, good to see you.” Rin said, “We were just about to take it from the top.”

Eloni only nodded and moved to where he remembered his positioning. It had been a while, so he wasn’t fully sure how this would turn out. As he moved to his spot, he felt the other’s eyes on him. Even Purl-Hew’s eyes, from behind his sunglasses. Eloni was suddenly very aware of just how out of place he probably looked to them right now. Still, he stood at his position and waited for Rin to start counting them off.

His feet staggered and he stumbled through the moves, noting every single mistake he was making. He turned too early here, nearly hit Haym there, stepped out of sync with the others. Eloni then noticed someone looking through the window. He took a moment to look to see who it was. Just for a moment. Neon J stood at the window, watching them. Suddenly, Eloni felt the maw open up again.

_He’s watching you fail. He’s watching you with disappointment._

Eloni froze up for a moment, misstepping off-beat again and sliding his foot against the dirt. He felt a particularly stubborn patch of grass enter the joint at his foot and leg. He tried to pull free so he could move in time but instead, he felt one of the others smack him in the face and he went tumbling down, the grass ripping free from the ground as he fell. Panic was rising in his core, and he felt the void continue to berate him on how idiotic the entire situation must have looked like to them.

“Oh gosh! Eloni I’m so sorry!” he heard Zimelu say.

“Eloni, are you okay?” Rin came over.

“Yeah… Yeah nothing’s broken.” Eloni replied, trying to calm himself down from the initial shock.

“Good job, saw-arms.” Purl-Hew scoffed.

“I didn’t mean to, you piece of plank!” Zimelu growled, turning his attention to his brother.

“Yeah? That doesn’t mean that you didn’t make a mess of things. Again.” Purl-Hew replied smoothly, crossing his arms.

“What the heck is your _problem?!_ ” Zimelu yelled, standing up from where he’d been checking Eloni.

Haym helped Eloni up, while Rin went over to try to smooth the talk over.

“Guys, we don’t have time for this-” Rin tried to explain, also now noticing Neon J in the window.

“No, clearly Purl-Hew thinks he’s so much better than us.” Zimelu cut him off, “And I’m sick of it!”

“Have I ever said that?” Purl-Hew frowned as he asked that.

“You don’t need to. You act like it all the time!” Zimelu said, “For once I’d wish you’d just look me in the eyes without those stupid glasses over your face and just say what you mean!”

Purl-Hew grew tense, instinctively reaching for the frames. “I don’t need to take these off and you know that I always say exactly what I mean.”

Rin opened his mouth to say something, trying to mediate between the two of them - when there suddenly came a loud smack as Zimelu hit Purl-Hew, sending both him and the sunglasses to the ground. Purl-Hew instinctively put one hand up to shield his eyes and got up to find his shades, when Zimelu ground them under his foot, breaking them entirely.

There was a tense moment of silence. Eloni’s panic grew a lot more as he watched Purl-Hew look up at Zimelu with such an intense look of anger. Even though it wasn’t directed at him, it scared the hell out of Eloni. He’d never seen Purl-Hew look so enraged.

“Just say that you think you’re better than us already!” Zimelu shouted.

Purl-Hew said nothing as he got up and tackled Zimelu to the ground. Purl-Hew straddled Zimelu and started to punch his face, cracking the lights and denting the metal. Zimelu got an arm free and grabbed at one of Purl-Hew’s arms, swinging it to go straight for his own face. This staggered Purl-Hew enough for Zimelu to shove him off and start to return the favor. Eloni’s fans were kicking into high gear. He couldn’t calm down. This was his fault, he shouldn’t have gotten out of bed, they were doing just fine without him.

Rin shouted something - probably to get them to stop, but the voice sounded so distant. He felt Haym leave his side - _please, don’t go, I can’t_ **_breathe_ ** \- and there were more scuffling noises. Eloni was burning up, he had to calm down or he’d have a total meltdown or worse have his internal explosives go off. Warnings in his programming were blaring in his head, even as he tried to think of anything else, only adding to more of the intense fear he was feeling. He got up, and tried to head away from everyone else. If he couldn’t calm down, at least the damage would be minimal, and he’d pop out from the factory as good as new.

Something slammed into him and he fell to the ground again. There was a flurry of blows echoing in his ears, along with the sounds of angered yells. He couldn’t move his arms to block the sound out - he couldn’t block out the sounds, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, _let go of me,_ _get off of me, get off, getoffgetoffgetoffget-_

Eloni blacked out his systems went critical and the heat that had been building up suddenly burst forth in a raging inferno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go. I probably shouldn't be adding onto the "Eloni is suffering" pile, but the more I think of it, the more that I come to realize that Eloni is the perfect perspective to be in for this particular situation.
> 
> I was listening to Lena Raine's Celeste OST for getting the right mood for writing this; specifically, [Little Goth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHdSK43cIf8), [Quiet and Falling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjG0ivBT4lQ), and _especially_ [Anxiety](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMuQ11tVJnk) for the last scene with Eloni's panic attack. It's a good game series if you haven't heard of it yet, and the OST beyond these three is _very_ good.


	3. Reboot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eloni's systems reboot after his panic attack, but very quickly he realizes something is very, very wrong...

Sometime later, Eloni felt his system boot back up. He tried to recall exactly what had happened, waiting for his visuals to kick back on. A blur of images and emotions flooded back to him and- oh. Oh that’s right. He’d had a meltdown. There was a moment of deeply-rooted shame that he couldn’t calm himself down. When his visuals were back online, he would take a moment and-

Without his control, his body suddenly lurched forwards and hot flashes of surprise and anger running through his system suddenly. There was a bit of rising panic but he was able to stop his body from moving any further. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, he knew it at the core of his being. He went through his memories again. There were flashes of pain, terror, moments where he could barely hear Neon J over his own synthesized screaming. Overloading? Several programs hadn’t been working, freezing entirely, others going through infinite feedback. He felt like it was the closest approximation to torture that he could feel.

What had happened? Was everything okay? How long had it been?

Eloni took it slow, swinging his legs over the edge of the table. There was another surge of confusion and fear - but it was detached, distant to what he was currently feeling. He didn’t know what was going on. There were cords attached into the back panel, he realized. They were probably important, and yet again against his will, his arm had reached for them before jerking to a stop.

‘Don’t do that.’ He heard in his mind. Normally, with the communication system that Neon J had installed for them, this wouldn’t have been jarring. But this wasn’t just a message - this was someone else’s voice _in his head._

‘Why not? We have to move eventually!’ came a second voice. Eloni took a moment to listen, trying to focus on who it was. He hadn’t gone crazy, right? If robots could go crazy that is.

‘Eventually. That doesn’t mean right away.’ Came the first voice. He was able to identify it as Purl-Hew.

‘What about Haym, Rin, and Eloni? And the captain? They’re probably worried about us. We have to get to them as soon as possible!’ Zimelu. That voice was Zimelu.

‘According to the time, it is early in the morning. They are probably waking up or close to doing so.’ Purl-Hew responded, surprisingly calm for what happened.

‘Um… guys, why can I hear you in my head?’ Eloni finally spoke up internally. There were tension and surprise that rose in him but again separated from his general confusion.

‘Eloni, how much do you remember from the fight we had yesterday morning?’ Purl-Hew asked.

Eloni accessed his memories again, wincing internally as he remembered the two of them breaking out into a fight, feeling the overwhelming panic, and then the blackout.

There was a moment of silence.

‘Woah… that was… intense.’ Zimelu said slowly, before Eloni could explain.

‘So you felt it too.’ Purl-Hew mused, though there was worry mixed in as he tried to keep calm.

‘Not just felt it, it was like… like it was _my_ memory.’ Zimelu explained.

‘What’s happened to us?’ Eloni whispered, terrified.

‘The running theory is that we’re sharing a body. It looks like we could be partially sharing a mind as well.’ Purl-Hew said, ‘We’ll take this slowly-‘

They both felt Zimelu start yanking out cords from the back panel before hopping to his - their?- feet.

‘No time, I’ll drive this body-‘ Zimelu started to speak before he was cut off.

‘Oh no you don’t.’ Purl-Hew responded quickly, stopping them from moving any further than where they were currently standing, ‘If you’re as graceful walking as you are going through dance routines, we’ll be scrap before we get anywhere.’

They were arguing again. Eloni moved his hands over his ears again to try to block out the sound. Yet it was still loud and clear. Right. Shared mind.

‘Oh please, you were barely dodging any of my punches.’ Zimelu snorted, and they both felt the eye roll he was trying to give off, ‘That isn’t exactly dexterous of you either.’

‘And you couldn’t dodge when I tackled you and started beating your face in.’ Purl-Hew sneered. The malicious feelings were suffocating to Eloni, he was being compressed between the two of them and it hurt a lot. It hurt him so much to see them still trying to tear each other apart

‘Oh yeah?’ Zimelu started to raise his voice, ‘Well, what about when-‘

“Guys! Stop!” Eloni screamed, having it unintentionally spoken aloud, the pressure of his hands threatening to break through his head. “Please… I just wanna go see dad.” He choked back a sob on that second sentence. He was terrified of what was going on, he wanted answers and hoped that the sentiment - or at the very least, the abject terror he was feeling - was reaching them.

‘Very well. Why don’t we let Eloni move us then.’ Purl-Hew said after a moment, ‘Surely even _you_ can’t object to that.’ The biting challenge in that sentence was very clear.

‘I’m not the one objecting to who moves us, but okay, whatever.’ Zimelu muttered, the aggressive snark coming through loud and clear despite the quiet tone.

With no further objections from either of them, Eloni took a moment to figure out where they were. Looking around it seemed that they were in the lab - off to the side where the factory was, they could see it partially disassembled with tools scattered in every direction. The factory was… off. Outside of the fact that it was disassembled and somewhat gutted, the faces on the machine were all mixed up - green, blue, and red, instead of it being one color. There was a sense of unease among the three of them, with Purl-Hew being the most intense of the three of them surprisingly. Eloni decided to not touch the mess - Neon J had a system, and he didn’t want to mess with it. Speaking of, the cyborg wasn’t in the lab. Rin might have convinced him to actually sleep in his bed for once.

Otherwise, he probably would be in here, working or having fallen asleep. Eloni did vaguely remember Neon J was there during the moment of agony that he couldn’t quite parse out. Eloni took a few tentative steps towards the door, half-expecting to be stopped by the other two, the other half-expecting something to go wrong immediately. Eloni moved quietly through the house, trying to hear for anyone else that was awake. The silence save for the hum of the lights and vents was almost unnerving.

Then, closer to one of the many living rooms, he could hear voices. He lingered in the doorway to try to listen.

“...just got back in the office. It took a bit of convincing to the reporters that everything’s under control.” Eloni grew very nervous as he heard the familiar, stern voice of Tatiana. Purl-Hew and Zimelu were also nervous, though to a far lesser extent than Eloni, “What even happened down there?”

“There was a fight ma’am and a technical malfunction.” Rin spoke up, trying to keep a professional tone.

“A fight?” While her tone was even, Eloni could pick up on the slightly lowered tone that felt like a demand for an explanation. He shivered internally. Despite the fact that things were going better than ever since the revolution, the iron fist that she used to rule with was still fresh in his, and everyone's, minds. 

“Zimelu and Purl-Hew have been… disagreeing as of late.” Haym was in the room too. “One thing lead to another and the next thing either of us knows, Eloni blows up taking out Zimelu and Purl-Hew.”

“We tried to calm the situation down beforehand,” Rin added, "tensions had long since been rising beforehand but the damage was minimal."

“I see. Are the three of them back online?” Tatiana asked.

There was a moment of silence. Zimelu took over again, forcing them through the doorway; before either Eloni or Purl-Hew could stop him they were standing square in the middle of the room. In the living room, on the television, was Tatiana. Most of the areas in the house had some sort of communication ability - this was one of the few places in the entire mansion that had video communication as well. Tatiana looked at them, looking surprised and confused.

“Yeah, we’re up.” Zimelu spoke up.

“In a sense.” Purl-Hew added.

Haym and Rin looked at the three of them. Haym’s eyes widened slightly, but Rin turned his attention back to their boss. Tatiana’s eyebrows furrowed, as if trying to make out what was in front of her. “And what exactly happened to cause… that?”

“The captain is still trying to figure that out.” Rin responded immediately. He was at attention, his hands behind his back, chest out, “From what he was able to gather, there might have been sabotage.”

“I see.” Tatiana sighed.

“We know the captain is too stubborn to admit it,” Rin continued, “but this may be more than just a quick few days to fix this issue. Certainly not enough time for us to be able to go to the first concert of the season.”

Eloni’s heart sank. All of this because he decided to get out of bed yesterday. Part of it was sabotage, but this wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place if he’d stayed in bed. Intense, incredulous anger and a feeling of resignation mixed in with all of the already festering feelings that Eloni was trying to deal with.

‘Don’t you say a single word.’ Purl-Hew warned.

‘I wasn’t!’ Zimelu protested.

‘We can feel your anger you know.’ Eloni countered.

At this Zimelu went quiet again, still seething but slightly calmed down. At least enough to not immediately have another outburst.

“We’re requesting that we take enough time to get this situation sorted out.” Rin was saying, “The district has been getting a large influx of indie performers, so it should be enough to meet the minimal power needs. The concerts that we were going to be performing can instead be used as opportunities for those indie bands to provide power. We understand, however, if we're required to work around this situation.”

Tatiana considered for a moment very carefully. Then spoke, sounding slightly defeated, “You're right. The district should survive even without your band at the forefront. But I expect either you or Neon J to report to me if there’s been any changes.”

“Of course ma’am.” Rin responded.

“In the meantime, I’ll have our public relations department do damage control.” Tatiana said, “I hope you manage to sort out whatever… that is.”

With that the feed cut off as Tatiana hung up. Haym hadn’t stopped gawking the entire time since he noticed them, but now Rin turned to look at them, concern on his face. The two of them approached the three of them, with Haym hugging them.

“How are you feeling?” Rin asked.

“Very… weird.” Eloni admitted.

“Terrible.” Zimelu grumbled, “I’ve got Purl-Hew yammering in my head now. Can’t even mute him.” he added. Eloni sensed that he was partially joking when he said that last bit.

“You think you’re the only one suffering?” Purl-Hew scowled, “I’m stuck with you as much as you’re stuck with me.”

“Stop, both of you.” Rin spoke, sternly, “Dad’s pretty upset with what happened and right before a concert too.”

Eloni wanted to speak up, but he hesitated. He tried to keep the internal guilt pent up, storing it away like the rest of his emotions. Now he had to be extra sure to not allow any feelings to come out. He had two other people that could feel them, and he didn’t want them to feel any worse than they already were about the situation. Fortunately and also somewhat unfortunately, they were distracted enough in the current moment to not notice Eloni’s nervousness.

“Are you kidding me?! Purl-Hew’s the one who-” Zimelu started to talk, but the audiobox distorted as Purl-Hew interjected.

“-started that fight, don’t even pretend this isn’t your fault-!”

“-not the one who keeps pretending to-”

Eloni felt the stress between the two of them again. Haym had let go, cautiously backing away, looking between the two arguing and Rin, who was getting angrier each moment as he watched them fight. Eloni was stuck yet again, deeply afraid and he couldn’t speak up. There was pressure in his chest and throat again, trying to not scream or cry. He wanted to retreat into himself, but there was nowhere he could go, and the panic was rising in the core of his being again. Almost instinctively at this point, his - their - hands rose up to his head to try to drown out the sound.

“ENOUGH!” Rin’s voice boomed throughout the room, startling the two out of the argument. The stress was relieved and Eloni could breathe - well, breathe as much as a robot could anyways, Rin’s arms were crossed and he looked furious, “Our security has been compromised, all of us have had our programming rearranged, the two of you and Eloni are trapped in the same body, and yet both of you are still fighting over petty things that don’t matter. I care about you, but you’ve been acting horrible to each other the entire break.”

Eloni felt the two of them glaring at each other or at least attempting to. Haym was quiet, still looking concerned at them.

“Just until everything settles down, I’m not going to let any of you wander off without being near me or Haym.” Rin said, “Just so none of you wind up accidentally exploding again.”

“I didn’t mean to- I mean, I don’t even know what happened.” Eloni quietly spoke, stammering over his words. Rin nodded. 

“Dad figured you didn’t. He said that whoever managed to get through our defenses the other night knew their way around technology.” he explained, “They messed with all of our programming. He said it was a combination of sort of feedback loop that caused your system to think it was in danger and the failsafe being disabled so _all_ of your weapons activated while they were still inside your body.”

“But dad fixed it.” Haym piped up, “He said it was really easy to fix once he did the reboot, so we’re okay now.”

“And what about this?” Purl-Hew asked, indicating to himself - themself? It was still hard for Eloni to wrap his head around and he knew his brothers felt the same.

“Dad said the factory had been tampered with too.” Haym replied, “But he’s still not sure to how much of it was tampered with, or how the factory’s failsafe didn’t go off.”

“Speaking of the captain, where is he?” Zimelu asked.

“Still asleep.” Rin said, “He spent the entire day until a few hours ago just trying to get the three of you stabilized.”

“What do you mean?” It was asked simultaneously between Zimelu and Purl-Hew, but the message had come out clear enough as an almost completely coherent sentence. Eloni recalled the haze of pain that was stored in his memory. He felt uneasy at the uncertain and almost fearful way Rin and Haym looked at each other before responding.

“We don’t know exactly what dad meant, but we were outside the door for a while when you emerged.” Haym said, “You just started screaming and sparking and smoking…” Haym trailed off, looking distraught. Eloni’s guilt and sadness only grew more, but he was quick to hide it from Purl-Hew and Zimelu. If they noticed, they didn’t say anything.

“The five of us, as you know, have similar base programming.” Rin continued, “The way dad explained it was that the different ways that you guys have built your personalities over time caused a lot of errors and programming conflicts. The same with me and Haym, if this were to happen to either of us. Thankfully, the memories were the only thing not in conflict with one-another, so dad was able to do a form of reset to stop you from exploding again.”

“I see.” Purl-Hew nodded. Zimelu recalled his part of the ordeal, and both Eloni and Purl-Hew could feel the same pain that he’d experienced. If just Eloni’s and Zimelu’s parts were just fractions of the pain they could recall individually, it was no wonder that their systems almost overloaded again.

“So what now?” Eloni asked timidly.

“Now, I’m going to make sure that you guys are alright enough to function normally, see if there’s any conflicts in your fighting abilities. We still need to be in top fighting shape just in case there’s any unrest.” Rin replied, “Dad said there might be an issue or two - outside of the two of you arguing.” That last bit was fully directed at Zimelu and Purl-Hew, but Eloni still felt the bitter frustration that was in the message.

“Fine by me.” Zimelu said.

Rin nodded again, then turning to Haym, “You should go and get some rest yourself, I know you haven’t charged since the other night.

“Okay. If there’s any problems just… come and get me I guess?” Haym replied, “I’m not sure how I can exactly help in this situation.”

“I will.” Rin spoke, watching as Haym left the room. Then he turned back to the three of them and said, “We’ll be heading to the backyard, to the training grounds. It should have enough space for us to have a small spar.”

The three all had a moment of silence, all of them caught off guard. “A spar?” Purl-Hew asked.

Rin smiled. “Well, we could just go to the training roo-”

“No, no. A spar is fine.” Zimelu quickly interjected, a sense of giddy excitement flooding their systems.

“As long as the other two are alright with it.” Rin responded.

“I am fine with it. I was just making sure I heard you right.” Purl-Hew stated.

Eloni hesitated for a moment, feeling the pointed look that Zimelu was trying to give him and the almost begging desperation that followed. He didn’t want to mess anything up for them. Again.

“Okay.” Eloni sheepishly murmured, “Yeah, we can do that.”

Rin looked at them, as if trying to read further into Eloni’s hesitation but seemed to either choose to not comment on it or wasn’t able to glean any more information on it. “Right then. Follow me.”

They followed, with Eloni winding through the halls and heading past the laboratory, when Purl-Hew suddenly interjected for them to stop just before they reached the doorway, almost making them fall face-forwards. Rin stopped, taking a look back at them.

“What’s wrong?” Rin asked.

“There’s tracks here - or, footprints, rather.” Purl-Hew stated, getting closer to the ground.

Eloni, Rin, and Zimelu turned their attention to what Purl-Hew was talking about. On the floor, there were a handful of dirty shoe prints left behind. There was a feedback loop as Purl-Hew started to analyze it, causing some minor discomfort for just a moment and flooding their system with information. Shoe size, shoe make, how many days old the prints were…

“Nothing that anyone we know wears.” Purl-Hew said, “Or the same shoe size as any of them either. This might be whoever came in and messed with our programming.”

“We’ll have to look at the video feed again.” Rin muttered to himself, “Good eyes as always Purl-Hew.”

“Of course.” Purl-Hew nodded.

Once they stood up again, Zimelu was the first to speak as they walked outside and followed Rin to the sparring field.

‘So did you ever use that to cheat at tag when we used to play that?’ Zimelu joked, adding a little bit of a chuckle at the end of it.

‘No.’ Purl-Hew replied curtly, ‘I didn’t get my scanning upgrade until I specifically requested it from dad.’

A wave of frustration came from Zimelu, and Eloni frowned internally at their small fight. Eloni tried to get a sense of what Purl-Hew was feeling. There was some subdued frustration from him as well, but also faint bits of worry. If Eloni focused hard enough, he could feel a certain… fear almost, hidden under all of the cool and collected nature of Purl-Hew. He wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if he could. Was it too sensitive? And even if it wasn’t, he was probably just worried about the current situation.

‘Jeez, Eloni, do you always think this hard?’ Zimelu spoke up, startling Eloni out of his own thoughts, ‘I can feel myself slowing down just from… whatever it is your thinking of right now.’

‘Sorry.’ Eloni said very quietly, trying to draw within himself again.

‘Lay off of him Zimelu, at least he has more thoughts in his processors than you do.’ Purl-Hew scolded. The seething hot anger from Zimelu rose again, making Eloni dizzy. He was feeling as close to nauseous as he could, the constant whiplash of emotions from all sides was almost too much to handle and all he wanted to do was shut down so he couldn’t feel them anymore.

Before either of them could continue bickering, Rin clapped, getting their attention.

“Alright, you know the rules of sparing, yeah?” Rin asked.

“Shields up, nothing that would cause extreme damage, first one to lose their shields loses!” Zimelu chirped, the anger quickly subsiding to genuine excitement. Purl-Hew was almost surprised at how fast Zimelu responded.

Rin smirked, and there was a sparkling sheen across his metal. The newly upgraded shields were less energy-intensive and closer to their bodies, so it didn’t look like they were dancing in hamster balls when they were performing. One of the many upgrades that Neon J had worked on after the music revolution.

Eloni felt nervous as the shield activated on their end, Purl-Hew giving a resigned mental sigh. Zimelu’s excitement continued to grow, and he started bouncing on his feet. There wasn’t too much aggression in the excitement - there was a competitive drive to win this fight, sure, but there wasn’t any malice in the urge to fight.

“Good. Then let's begin.” Rin said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Another chapter fresh off of the press! This one took a while to write up just because of all the dialogue. This has been the most characters that I've written that talk all in the same chapter. Also the longest I've ever written a chapter - 8 pages long to be precise. The next chapter is the spar, which will be interesting because I've never written a lengthy fighting scene in my entire life.
> 
> Also, I'm going to make an attempt to publish one chapter worth 1,000-2,000 (maybe more if I'm feeling especially bold) words a week, just because I want to get better at writing.


	4. Brothers-In-Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have a little sparring session. It doesn't turn out exactly the best, and what they find out doesn't make things better.

There was a moment of silence between the two of them and Eloni decided it would be best if he stayed out of this situation. There wasn’t much that Eloni could contribute to, as he never sparred often enough to give any input to this, or any, fight. He was one that usually followed the instructions of the others and hoped that he wasn’t getting in the way. Purl-Hew was trying to think a few steps ahead, waiting for Rin to make the first move. Before either of them could react, Zimelu launched into the fight without warning.

He faked out Rin with his right fist swinging for his face, Rin putting up his arms to block the hit. His left fist connected with Rin’s torso, breaking Rin’s defenses just enough for Zimelu to go for an actual swing to the head. The hit connected disorienting Rin completely, but Zimelu wasn’t done yet. He went for a leg sweep that made Rin stumble and fall. Before he could do anything further Purl-Hew stopped him. There was a faint white glow from Rin’s palms that Eloni just barely caught.

‘What are you doing?! I got this!’ Zimelu shouted.

‘He’s about to-’ Purl-Hew was cut off by a kick to his face as Rin spun on his hands. The hit was enough to send them stumbling backward away from Rin. The glow in his hands was glowing brighter. When they were far enough away, Rin pushed off of the ground with his hands and landed back on his feet; the light in his hands reformed and condensed to two short swords that curved ever so slightly upwards.

“Good hits!” Rin said, “Next we’ll test weapon efficiency. Dad said he wouldn’t be sure if the weapons would work or not.”

Though Eloni and Purl-Hew nodded, Zimelu merely attempted to form his weapons. Red light burst forth, bladed disks appearing with ease. Though they seemed smaller by comparison. Where before they were the size of Zimelu’s hair and he had to wield them like chakrams, now they were a much more manageable and wieldable size to properly be called ringed blades. Zimelu was miffed but had no time to dwell on the fact. Rin took the aggressive action first dashing forwards and swinging one of his swords to cut into the torso, the other going for an overhead swing. Zimelu made an attempt to block, but felt the sword slash into the right side of his torso. The shield took the hit well enough to not damage the three of them, but there was a crack that formed, hairline bits of light spidering out from the impact site.

‘Your form is sloppy and you keep leaving yourself open.’ Purl-Hew stated.

‘Shut up! I got this!’ Zimelu barked, ‘And you’re not helping!’

Rin was going in for another swing, and Eloni had stumbled back as the two continued to argue. The ring blades faded when he fell backward onto his hands, but Eloni got back up. He’d try to summon his weapons - little orbs of green light that he could toss. They were explosive balls similar to grenades, but whereas Haym’s explosive energy beams would be large and widely uncontrolled, Eloni’s were the opposite. Small, controlled, manageable, but also predictable. Instead, he felt Zimelu also trying to summon his weapons in a haste, and what resulted was a small, green, and red orb.

They were all confused by what happened, even Rin who paused a moment before going in for a strike. Eloni yelped and hastily threw the ball in between them which exploded as predicted. However, small red spikes flew from the resulting explosion, slamming into both of them. Purl-Hew raised their arms in defense, the spikes digging into the shielding, causing more hairline fracturing to spider outwards at the various new impact sites. Rin, having been unprepared, also got hit by the spikes having them implant themselves into his torso. There were several cracks that had spread out trying to touch each other but not quite reaching.

‘Both of you are too uncoordinated and sloppy,’ Purl-Hew muttered, ‘I’ll take over from here.’

Blue light came from their hands next as Rin regained his balance. Gauntlets formed, covering up the hairline fractures on their arms and making their hands feel a little more weighty than before. Rin and Purl-Hew charged at each other, the latter catching the former’s blades in his hands. Purl-Hew went for a kick to the torso in an attempt to shatter the shield then and there. Rin backed off, removing his weapons for a moment so he wouldn’t be pinned. However, the white light didn’t fade.

Instead after he backed up, the light in Rin’s hands formed a quarterstaff. He twirled the weapon to get used to its weight before he lunged forward, Purl-Hew made an attempt to block the weapon with his hands - which left their torso open yet again. Rin swung a fist into the weak spot, the hairline cracks increasing greatly.

‘What was that about being sloppy and uncoordinated?’ Zimelu smugly stated.

Purl-Hew just rolled his eyes and went for more strikes to the torso. Rin blocked as well as he could with the quarterstaff, slapping away the gauntlets. Zimelu became more and more aggressive with the swings, throwing off the rhythm that Purl-Hew was trying to set. As the two of them wrestled for control yet again, Rin ducked under one of the swings, sweeping the quarterstaff under their legs to trip them up. Eloni tried to evade but wound up falling, exposing the torso. Rin brought an overhead swing crashing down on the weak spot, shattering the shield instantly.

The glow from Rin’s hands faded, and he offered a hand to help his brothers up. Eloni took it, but there was increased frustration and anger welling up from both Zimelu and Purl-Hew. Eloni knew what was about to happen.

“Good job!” Rin began congratulating them, “I mean, for having fused-”

“I told you I had it! But no! You just had to be the boss of everything!” Zimelu’s frustration burst out loudly as he screamed at Purl-Hew. Rin flinched, backing away from them looking extremely concerned.

“We would have won if you had remained composed enough to let me-” Purl-Hew was calmly explaining.

“I did let you! You weren’t hitting him where you needed-” Zimelu cut him off.

The two continued to argue, glitching out the voicebox, and Eloni could only meekly try to stop them, only adding to the confusion and glitching of their voices. He didn’t have enough mental energy to try to stop them this time. The pressure was building again - up and down and up again, it  _ hurt, make it stop, please someone make it stop- _

There were sudden hands on their shoulders, startling all three of them out of their feud.

“Hey, look at me - all three of you.” Rin commanded, though his voice was gentle. They all focused as best as they could on him; he locked eyes with them and continued talking, “You all did good just now. Even for whatever happened between the three of you you all did, well, better than good. I mean did you see that weapon that Eloni threw out? Or the hits that you guys tanked?”

The three fell silent. Zimelu was confused and almost sheepish; Purl-Hew was hard to read having gone completely calm and stoic again; and Eloni felt a bit of pride. He didn’t contribute much to the fight at all, and yet he was getting praise. Sure it was directed at all three of them, but he would take the small amount of joy where he could get it.

“This is going to be an adjustment for all of us until dad can get the factory fixed. So just calm down for a bit, okay?” Rin finished, still not having let go of their shoulders. They nodded, and Rin pulled them into a hug.

Eloni felt a bit of his own pent-up emotions suddenly seep out - he wanted to cry so damn hard, hug his brother tight and not let go - the dam had cracked and he was sure the other two could feel it. He quickly stuffed his feelings further down, calming it down to a general kind of sadness. There was still a lingering uncertainty from the other two, even when Eloni forced himself to calm down.

A message from Neon J pinged out to all of them. He wanted to meet them in the living room to talk about what happened. Almost wordlessly, the four of them started to head back inside sending back affirmative messages to Neon J that they were on the way. There was silence for a moment, a different kind of tense feeling lingering in the air that Rin was oblivious to.

‘Hey… uh, ‘loni, you alright?’ Zimelu was the first to speak, uncertainty wavering in his question. There was concern laced in his voice and the tone of his voice was quiet - as if his voice would shatter something.

Eloni was silent. How could he respond? How  _ should _ he respond after all of that?

‘Eloni, we know something’s wrong.’ Purl-Hew added when there had been no response. He was trying to be neutral, but Eloni felt a blip of concern - just for a fraction of a second.

‘Don’t pressure him.’ Zimelu firmly and somewhat aggressively said, ‘If he doesn’t want to talk about it, then leave him be.’

‘I wasn’t trying to put pressure on anyone.’ Purl-Hew responded, ‘I was merely stating a fact.’

‘Still, that’s really-’

‘Can we just go and meet dad?’ Eloni cut both of them off, a bubbling feeling of fearful hostility laying just below the surface of Eloni’s emotions. There was surprise from both of them, but they didn’t push any further for the rest of the walk.

When they arrived at the living room again, Neon J was sitting there, tapping his fingers against his knees. They didn’t even need to make their presence known, as he waved them over to sit on the couch with him. The three were a little scared for separate reasons. Was he mad at them for fighting yesterday? Probably. They were waiting to be scolded bracing for the inevitable impact of disappointment from him.

“Are you boys doing okay?” was the first thing he said. His tone was even, firm, and level.

“We’re functioning as best as we can.” Purl-Hew said.

“Could be worse.” Zimelu spoke off-handedly.

Eloni only nodded.

There was another moment of terse silence between the four of them and Neon J. He heaved a breath through his lungs before talking again.

“I am glad you three are safe.” Neon J started, “Well, as safe as you can be anyways. I am upset that Zimelu and Purl-Hew had fought like they did, but as of now we have more pressing concerns. I assume Rin has brought you up to speed on what has been going on?”

“Yes sir.” Purl-Hew responded quickly, “Haym and him have already told us that both the factory and all of us were tampered with.”

Neon J nodded. “It extends a bit further than that. Whoever it was bypassed our security like it was nothing. We only have a bit of video showing them  _ leaving _ but not entering.”

“There were shoeprints as well.” Purl-Hew added.

“Yes, I saw those.” Neon J affirmed, “However, with what little information we have, it doesn’t appear to be enough to find anyone at this current moment. I have also talked with Tatiana about how to move forwards with this-” he turned his screen to Rin slightly before he turned his attention back to the three of them, “-and she has already told me that it is alright to take our time in repairing the damage that has been done.

“The good news is that the factory isn’t beyond repair, but unfortunately it will take a while for me to fix. It wasn’t meant for the different parts of your weapons and abilities to be merged so unceremoniously together, so a lot of the more sensitive technology has been irreparably damaged. The parts and materials should arrive in approximately a week.”

“A week?!” Zimelu blurted out. There was a spike in fear from all three of them.

“Yes. A week.” Neon J stated. “The three of you need to remain active during that time; I’m not sure what completely deactivating you without the factory being intact would do to the three of you.”

There was silence from the three of them, mostly out of anger. There wasn’t any point in saying anything else - and what could be said anyways. Eloni wasn’t sure if he’d even last the rest of the day with these two constantly bickering in his head. For now, at least they were quiet. Eloni would take that blessing even at how horrible it felt. Rin was giving the three of them a sympathetic look, which only added to the anger and resentment that was being felt.

“The three of you will have to stay inside the mansion. Who knows what would happen if you three were seen by someone - let alone one of your fans.” Neon J continued when no one spoke.

“So we’re just going to be cooped up the entire time?” Purl-Hew muttered, bitter resentment pouring out with what he said surprising everyone in the room.

“It’s a necessary measure.” Neon J spoke firmly, “To keep you three safe while I work on this.”

“Fine. If that’s all, I’m going to read.” Purl-Hew said curtly, standing and walking out the door after that terse statement. Neon J frustratedly sighed behind them, though that didn’t stop Purl-Hew.

“Purl! Wait!” Rin was following, but Purl-Hew didn’t stop. If anything he went faster not wanting to talk with Rin.

“Guys, wait a moment-” Rin followed, keeping pace with them.

“Why? Dad’s made it clear we’re not going to leave the house.” Purl-Hew stated, still trying to remain neutral despite the passive-aggressive message, “We’ve got a week to wait this out - at minimum.”

“It won’t be that bad.” Rin replied, reaching his hand out to touch them on the shoulder, “We can find things to do in the meantime - you know, together as a fami-”

Purl-Hew finally stopped, whipping around and smacking Rin’s hand away. Zimelu and Eloni continued to be surprised, though Rin looked especially surprised.

“No one asked you to babysit us.” Purl-Hew spoke, anger on full display at this point, “Believe it or not we’ll be just fine on our own.”

“That’s not- I just-” Rin was trying to speak, though it was clear he was trying to speak to them without being overbearing.

“I don’t want to hear it.” Purl-Hew stated, “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be elsewhere.”

Rin look a little hurt but didn’t protest as Purl-Hew walked away. Eloni couldn’t help but feel empathy towards everything that just happened on both sides. Zimelu and Eloni both sat in silence as Purl-Hew went to the library hidden deep within the mansion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The three of them really need to talk without cutting each other, or others, off. Ah, I guess boys will be boys though. This chapter was a challenge - just writing that fight scene was really hard for me. I had to re-write it three separate times because I wasn't satisfied with the path and the outcome of the scenario. It was either revealing too much about Zim and Purl-Hew, forcing them to solve their aggression too quickly, or just seemed unrealistic.
> 
> I kinda didn't know what to write for the dialogue between Neon J and them. I had massive writer's block the entire week after the fight and I put something together before posting it, but here we go, more angst and anger.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea in my head since the second chapter of Mechanical Heartbeat, and I am super happy that I can focus on this now that Mechanical Heartbeat is finished. If all goes well, then, this and Chapter 2 should go up on the same day.


End file.
